The Ethnic Factor of the Formation and Preservation of the Identity of the Population of the Ukrainian-Russian Borderline: Historical and Ethnographic Aspects (Exemplified by Sivershchyna)

The article is devoted to the study of historical, ethnographic, cultural, religious processes and linguistic influences in the frontier regions of Ukraine, bordering with the Russian Federation or are historical and ethnographic Ukrainian territories in a neighbouring country, on the formation and preservation of the identity of the population of Ukrainian borderline. The purpose of the work is to study the specified aspects within the boundaries of Sivershchyna, known as the north-eastern region of the Ukrainian-Russian border. It is ascertained that this Ukrainian historical-ethnographic region has been undergone the earliest and largest Russification, starting from the time of the Muscovite-Lithuanian war of 1500–1503 for these north-eastern Ukrainian lands. During the times of the Muscovite Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union, this process has been only intensified. The current aggressive Russia has moved to an extremely negative way of de-Ukrainization of the region – the physical destruction of Ukrainians through a military invasion as part of the full-scale phase of the war against Ukraine launched in 2014. It is concluded that the quantitative imbalance between ethnic Ukrainians and Russians in this border region in favour of the latter is explained, on the one hand, by Russia’s intensive assimilationist policy towards ethnic Ukrainians, and on the other hand, by insufficient attention and support of Ukrainians in the neighbouring state by Ukraine itself.